



>\r 'v^--/ v T <^v <v^v v- 




** v \ 



© • » 






» ^ 



*4<fe ^ 



v O o V*«^> V-™V° V^-V V*< 




1% ° 










v » * * •- <^ 



-#+<K 











/\ -SIR* *^ 













y% f?# f /\ : -s»\ ^v-W" f /^ 






-o*" ••••♦ ^*b/ " .4* v '.•*'_•♦ ^6 ' ,o* o •.!_••. 



* o 














"♦«. ^ 



4 o 




* ^ 

















\s 



£** 



^0* :<JK "e>* 



v>* / V 








:. "^o* • 







♦♦^ 





.' 













.^^ 





*°* 




Glen K. Shuetleff 

MEMORIAL, 



Entered Jlssociation Work at Utica, 1883, 
Denver, 1889, Cleveland, 1893 

Born November 21, 1860 
Died January 5, 1909 



Issued by 
THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES 

OF 

THE YOUNG MEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION 
OF CIvEVEIyAND, OHIO 







VbM>Z< 



li 



The memory of our late friend will have a 
permanent place in the hearts of all who knew 
him, but there will come generations of men, 
some laboring in the places which he filled, 
to whom the reading of these pages may be 
an inspiration. 

The utterances here preserved, though 
spoken in love, are but an attempt to enu- 
merate some of the enterprises which his 
genius and spirit influenced, and to show, 
though so inadequately, the appreciation in 
which he, as a citizen, counsellor, officer and 
friend, was held. They comprise the record 
of the addresses made at the memorial service 
held in the Chamber of Commerce Sunday, 
January 24, 1909. They also contain the reso- 
lutions of his immediate associates and edi- 
torial testimonials from representative pub- 
lications. 

This is published as an affectionate me- 
morial of our regard for his personality and 
esteem for his memory. 



Board of Trustees, 

Young Men's Christian Association, 

Cleveland, Ohio. 

February, igog. 



Memorial Service at Cleveland Chamber of Commerce, 
Sunday, January 24, 1909, at Three P. M. 



ADDRESS OF MR. S. P. FBNN, 

President Young Men's Christian Association of 
Cleveland. 

This gathering this afternoon is an expression, the 
result of an earnest expression from many that have 
not heretofore been able to show their respect and their 
sympathy and their love for him who is gone, and who 
desire some public method of so doing. We bear wit- 
ness to the life and to the record of one who has been 
with us and has been a marked influence among us — 
a simple life, and one in which the strongest character- 
istic perhaps was modesty. And the private nature of 
the services that have been held thus far has been be- 
cause of that desire on his part, very largely. He de- 
sired no great headlines. He said, "Let there be no 
great parade, when I am gone, over me," and it was 
characteristic of his life, and so we could but respect 
his wish. 

Mr. Shurtleff was born in Watkins Glen, New York, 
November 21, i860. Of the forty-eight years of his 
life, thirty years he was in contention with himself, 
suffering from an infirmity which he said was never 
absent one day perhaps in all those years, and which 
culminated at last in his death, to our great loss and 
surprise. Few knew what had been his contention ; 
he did not speak of it. 

His was a model rounding out of a Young Men's 
Christian Association life. In the three divisions of his 
life, the physical, the spiritual, and the mental, he 
gave his strength and his vigor. In the physical, 
he had not that on which to build that provided 
a long life for him, care for it as he might. After 



twenty-five years rounded out in the Association work, 
he was ripened to the harvest on January 5, when he 
went to his reward, and took with him the sheaves of 
many a life influenced by his own. He fought this hard 
fight, and it has reminded some of us of Paul of old, 
for nearly his last words were, "I have fought hard and 
long; I have done my best." He had fought a good 
fight and he had finished his course. 

Our ideal of a perfect man may not differ very much 
among ourselves as we think of him today. But when 
we see a perfect man developed, and find so much of 
beauty and of character, we can but stop and make 
record. And so we do. My experience was a personal 
one with him for all the fifteen years that he was with 
us, and I never knew a character that carried so much 
force, so much sweetness and so much strength, not 
only for itself but for another, as I found in him. First 
and foremost, he was always a Christian man, and he 
believed that when Christianity was at the basis and 
Christ was the one on whom it was built, all other mat- 
ters would fall in line in due proportion. He believed 
in a few things tremendously as fundamental, and he 
endeavored to make others believe the same. He talked 
and walked and lived with God, and, like Abou Ben 
Adhem, he loved God because he loved his fellow man 
so well. His life was a flowing river — not only a well 
— deep and full. He looked for the best in men, and 
gave men his best. His life was an inspiration, his 
memory is a benediction. Not always perfect, he made 
no claim to that ; he felt the limitations of his life, and 
his life was a pattern in conquering limitations, as it 
might be to any of us. He always sought for those 
who knew more than he, and seldom found them. I 
have in this record combined the ideas of the workers 
in our Association building, the chief ones, and I think 
this is the combined expression : 

"No one thing about Mr. Shurtleff impressed us 
more than his splendid poise. His perfect balance on 
all occasions was the counterpart of an exceedingly 
practical mind. His judgment in matters of Association 
policy was almost infallible. He could make quick de- 
cisions with few mistakes. He constantly surprised 
every specialist on the Cleveland force by anticipating 
his ideas and plans. He ever tried to keep himself in 
the background. 



"He was a man of remarkable breadth of sympathy. 
No phase of the work interested him more than that 
of the railroad men. During the last few years of his 
life he longed for the strength and opportunity to es- 
tablish the Association more substantially among the 
industrial classes. He coveted a greater opportunity 
for all young men, and believed the Association could 
fill an important place in the life of the busy business 
man. Every secretary felt that Mr. Shurtleff was his 
personal friend. He was the most companionable 
man we ever knew, and whether deluged by work 
or racked by pain, his keen sense of humor was always 
manifest and relieved many a tedious affair. 

"He was a rare executive. He had the wonderful 
faculty of placing executive authority in department 
heads, and stimulating them. As secretary of the Board 
of Trustees his executive influence and power were strongly 
centralized, but he allowed great latitude, and gave every 
man abundant opportunity for his best individual expres- 
sion. He never posed as a superior. He believed in a 
broad policy. Religious life to him was expressed in serv- 
ice. He defied precedent in method and form, and always 
championed the great basic principle that every department 
of the work converged into the religious. 

"He did best what many men do well. He stood pre- 
eminent among men in his power of unprejudiced analysis 
of problems and their solution, his willingness to co-operate 
with any enterprise toward the uplift of men; his ignoring 
of personal advantage in relation to humanitarian and 
religious effort; his high estimate of the value of men's 
lives to themselves and to the community; his ability 
to discover the germ of success in the most unfortunate 
and imperfect man; his unselfish labor in the success 
of others ; his power to develop men for service ; his 
embodiment of the qualities which make our Associa- 
tion progressive, and a laboratory for the development 
of methods and the discovery of principles ; his fear- 
lessness of criticism, the index of a lofty purpose and 
clean method; his statesmanship, which raised him above 
his fellows in his work; his unselfish, simple life, which 
was an impressive object lesson to all who knew him, 
and an added appreciation of the value of living." 

He began his work in Cleveland September I, 1893. 
Perhaps in no department was the progress more mani- 
fest than in the religious. The membership in 1893 was 



6 



about 1, 800; it is now over 5,000. The annual receipts 
in 1893 were about $25,000; and today they are more 
than $100,000. The religious work was carried on en- 
tirely inside of the Association building, and the meet- 
ings and Bible classes were largely attended by mem- 
bers of the church. Today the Association is conducting 
more than seventy-five meetings and Bible classes for men, 
attended largely by non-church-goers. Nor are these meet- 
ings confined to the Association building; they are held 
in shops and factories, homes and churches, clubs, and 
wherever men can most naturally be brought together. 
These results are due to the deep religious convic- 
tions, the broad sympathies and wise direction of Mr. 
Shurtleff. Mr. ShurtlefFs fifteen years of service were 
punctuated by the following important events : 

New Appointments. 

Building Superintendent 1895 

Employment Secretary 1895 

Boys' Secretary 1896 

Educational Director 1898 

Religious Work Secretary 1899 

General Auditor and Treasurer 1899 

Buildings. 

Erie Street Annex to Central Building.... 1895 

New building opened at Broadway 1896 

New building at Linndale 1897 

West Side Boys' Club opened 1901 

Central Boys' Department Annex 1902 

Unfinished plans were those for the boys' work in 
the East End, which is now in progress and partly fin- 
ished. He had in his mind also the organization of an 
Association and the erection of a building for the col- 
ored men of the city. He had in mind also the erec- 
tion of a railway building on Kinsman Road, in con- 
nection with the Pennsylvania System; and the removal 
perhaps from St. Clair Street, because of that. He had 
in mind a building for industrial purposes and indus- 
trial interests on St. Clair Avenue. 

Be the object civil, for social betterment, charitable or 
religious, it always found a place with him. In Cleveland 
today we stagger under his loss, and that of others like him, 
and we wait and wonder upon whom will the mantle fall for 
the days to come? 



ADDRESS OF MR. ROBERT E. LEWIS, 

State Secretary Young Mens Christian Associations of 

Ohio. 

The policies for which Mr. Shurtleff stood in our 
growing work influence today the lives of tens of thou- 
sands of men in this state. Many of you are not aware 
of that fact, but the fact is indisputable. For many 
years his personality has been most pronounced and 
his influence the greatest in the counsels of the state 
organization, in the shaping of its plans and the pro- 
motion of its endeavors. We loved him, and we love 
him still. And those of us who looked upon him dur- 
ing those last hours of his mighty fight, find it very 
difficult to put into the language of eulogy or friend- 
ship our loss and our need of him this day and these 
coming days. 

I snatched from my desk yesterday, a group of let- 
ters which had come there from various associates 
throughout the state, and while I wouldn't read them, 
for they are extended, I will just catch here and there 
a personal estimate of him from those associated with 
him. 

A man from Mount Vernon writes that the break 
up of cant and professionalism in his life came from 
personal contact with this great leader of ours. A man 
from Newark writes that force of personal presence, 
force of character and of intellect and will, chiefly char- 
acterized Mr. Shurtleff, in this man's mind and in his 
influence over this friend in Newark. A business man 
of large affairs writes that his magnificent spirit is that 
which he cannot cease to remember, and he says, "In 
the whole State Committee he was the Gamaliel." An- 
other, a man of great affairs in the city of Daytony 
speaks of the convictions of Mr. Shurtleff and for which 
he fought, and which usually prevailed, because they 
were come to, as he says, only after mature consulta- 
tion and deliberation. Another, a manufacturer from 
Columbus, wrote me in regard to him, "His was 
the keenest and most far-seeing mind I have ever 



8 



known." A secretary who had been associated with him 
on the employed force for fourteen years as a friend, 
looks back over those fourteen years and says that dur- 
ing that acquaintance, in his perplexities and problems 
he has turned to Mr. Shurtleff, by letter or by inter- 
view. The president of a bank in Youngstown sent me 
a letter, in which he said that Mr. Shurtleff impressed 
him as intuitively comprehending the needs and affairs 
of men — a remarkable statement, in regard to one of 
his remarkable characteristics. And then one of his 
own associates here in Cleveland says, "Those who knew 
him only slightly stood in awe of him, but those who 
knew him best found in him a sympathetic friend." 
Those who were intimate with him longed for more in- 
timacy. And a leading citizen of this city, a man of 
affairs, wrote, "When we came to really know him, we 
found that his plans included all that we could desire, 
and more than we even understood." One of the lead- 
ing editors of this continent says : "No man that I 
know has seen more clearly than Mr. Shurtleff the 
forces which are at work in our religious and social life, 
and no man has done more to direct those forces to 
Christian ends." And a secretary who says he has been 
often troubled over his work, says that he almost al- 
ways found a way how, after making a trip to Cleveland. 

A lawyer in one of the central cities of the state 
writes that there was a certain directness of approach 
by Mr. bhurtleff to matters which came up for consider- 
ation, which was remarkable. And another friend says, 
"Mr. Shurtleff was absolutely just in his relation- 
ships with men, and especially with his subordinates," 
and this writer is glad to class himself as a subordinate. 
A lawyer in the northwestern part of the state wrote 
me that while Mr. Shurtleff was distinguishel in many 
ways, he was distinguished among Association men in 
that he never forgot his duties as a citizen. 

And so I might go on, for there are scores of these. 
They simply epitomize our love for him, and you see 
how limited words are when we really strive to express 
the wealth of our need and our lack. 

An incident or two come to my mind which in one 
way or other characterize him. I was in the Hartman 
Hotel in Columbus on a certain day in May. Members 
of the Chamber of Commerce of Cleveland were there 
for a certain purpose. The telegraph had brought the 



news that Mr. Shurtleff was wanted here as the third 
arbiter in a great matter, and they came across the din- 
ing room and urged him to accept that most important 
appointment. He remarked that he could not do so; 
that he had come to Columbus on special business that 
would keep him for two days. Men had come from 
the east and the west to meet him there in counsel. 
And after replying in the negative to them, he said to 
us, "If I had been in Cleveland, how could I have de- 
clined that, without telling the condition of my own 
health?" We didn't know, many of us, what a fight this 
man fought all these years, and how in the providence 
of God he was relieved in May from making a refer- 
ence to it that the public might know of it. 

I was invited to meet with him in the mountains 
last summer, and for days we had sweet intercourse. As 
we rowed on the river, or as we walked the hills, and 
the pace was gentle, we were talking constantly about 
the men and the means and the problems of our work. 
And I shall never forget his incisiveness, kindliness, 
keenness, his knowledge of the past and how he read 
the future, as he discussed the progress of the work. 
He was a seer, and he saw what many of us will not 
see until it is unfolded as a reality, but the future is 
always approaching. 

About ten years ago men in neighboring states ap- 
proached him with great solicitude, thinking that some 
of these new schemes of work, like the religious work 
department which Mr. Shurtleff was standing for, were 
chimerical. And yet how that has been taken up ! Look 
at the work of the Cleveland Association. This is one 
of the largest Associations in the country, as Cleveland 
is the seventh city of the nine largest, yet the men en- 
rolled in the Bible classes and shop meetings in connec- 
tion with the factories, the total attendance for Bible 
study is the largest of the continent, and the expense 
of operating this work is sixth instead of first. 

Another incident comes to me. There was a sec- 
retarial friend of Mr. Shurtleff who had been in almost 
constant correspondence with him for a number of years, 
from the other side of the world. He seemed to be de- 
feated by his problems. He prepared his resignation to 
the International Committee. But at that juncture there 
arrived a short letter, he doesn't know to this day why 
it was written, but it served a God-given purpose : "We 



10 



think of you, pray for you, and believe in your work," 
was all it said. That resignation was torn up, that 
work was carried forward and completed. Thus Mr. 
ShurtlefFs influence went around the world. How many 
instances might we not cite ! 

But you will bear with me for only a word more. 
Just a year ago I stood in front of St. Gaudens' great 
statue in Lincoln Park, Chicago, and read the words 
back of the great form of the great Lincoln, and I told 
Mr. ShurtlefT one day it seemed to me they character- 
ized his life. Mr. Lincoln summoned his country, and 
Mr. Shurtleff has summoned our order, often in the 
midst of misunderstandings and discouragements, to 
larger things. And these were the words, and I 
would apply them to him. Said that leader of men, 
as he was leading his country: "Let us believe that the 
right means might, and in that belief let us go forward 
and do our duty as we understand it to the end." And 
that sentiment characterized the endeavors and the 
achievements of our friend, Mr. ShurtlefT. 



11 



ADDRESS OF MR. FRED S. GOODMAN, 

Secretary Bible Study Department of the International 
Committee. 

I find myself today in a conflict between two pleas; 
for I am here as a friend — perhaps no one in this build- 
ing today, with the exception of Mrs. Shurtleff and pos- 
sibly Mr. Cadwallader, can go as far back as myself 
in friendship with Mr. Shurtleff. Twenty-three years 
ago, at the International Conference of Secretaries held 
in the state house in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, we oc- 
cupied the senate chamber for our conference, and Mr. 
Shurtleff and I were deskmates for four days, and 
our friendship began then. And if you will allow me a 
passing personal word, all that has happened in fifteen 
years in Cleveland is gratifying to me, because I had 
the privilege, not often accorded, of recommending my 
successor. More than that, Mr. Shurtleff and I were 
intimate friends, differing on many things, but I have 
had very few friends so close as he. But I am here 
today to represent the North American brotherhood, and 
if you will allow me, therefore, to be within the time 
that I am assigned, I want to read what I have to say. 
I want to speak about the contribution of Mr. Shurt- 
leff's life to the movement in North America. 

Many of the six thousand or more men who, in the 
past thirty years, have entered or are now in the ranks of 
the employed force of the Young Men's Christian Asso- 
ciations have contributed to its growth in numbers and 
efficiency. To estimate their contribution is an impossi- 
ble task. But Mr. Shurtleff's contribution stands out in 
unmistakable outline. He was one of less than a score 
of secretaries who might be fairly called "great men" — 
great in character, capacity, discernment and abiding 
influence. 

He had the advantage of entering the secretaryship 
near the opening of its great era. The most significant 
phases of Association development have had their be- 
ginnings during the twenty-five years covered by Mr. 
Shurtleff's service. For example: The principal suc- 



12 



cesses of the Railroad and Student work, the birth and 
growth of the Student Volunteer Movement for Foreign 
Missions, the finest expressions of the various forms 
of specialization, — Physical, Athletic, Educational and 
Religious ; the many-sided Boys' Work, the Army and 
Navy and Industrial Departments, the newer forms of 
local extension into shops and factories, the many 
types of social service and civic betterment, the exten- 
sion of the movement to the great cities and universi- 
ties of Asia, Latin America and our island possessions, 
— these are a few of the outstanding features of the 
period covered by Mr. ShurtlefT's activity. 

Of most of these progressive features he has been 
an integral part. He has been a keen observer of the 
signs of the times, a courgeous pioneer, a bold experi- 
menter. It is commonplace to speak of Cleveland as 
a laboratory station for trying out new Association ideas. 
While the Cleveland Association had a creditable record 
before his coming in 1893 it has since that time, step by 
step, forged to the front in its influence on the move- 
ment in North America. It is within the bounds of 
propriety to say that in the last decade no single Asso- 
ciation has had so large an influence as Cleveland in the 
counsels of the Associations of North America. Mr. 
ShurtlefT has been the responsible factor in making this 
influence possible. What I have said will suggest to 
some extent the difficulties involved in trying to repre- 
sent the feelings of the secretaries of North America 
towards this truly great man. 

What were some of the elements of Mr. ShurtlefT's 
power as an Association Secretary? Why does his per- 
sonality stand out with such distinctiveness against the 
background of Association history? What has he done 
for the movement? 

First. 

Mr. ShurtlefT was a masterful leader of men. There 
are many types of leaders. Some men lead by the con- 
tagion of great enthusiasm, their emotions are strong, 
or they are magnetic with oratorical gifts which stir 
the feelings and win the devotion of their followers. 
He was not an orator, though he always spoke with 
telling effect. He was not emotional, though he had 
a great heart. He led men by the force of his tremen- 
dous personality. He was a leader because he was 



13 



forceful and genuine, original and fair, intelligent and 
industrious, fearless and bold, tolerant of opinions, but 
intolerate of wrong, sympathetic and self effacing. 
Leadership was as natural to him as friendship and as 
unselfish as is all true friendship. He never sought 
to win men himself, but to the cause he represented. 
The movement owes its very life to unselfish leadership. 

Second. 

The Secretaryship of the Young Men's Christian As- 
sociation is a modern calling. The first man to enter 
the secretaryship in America is still in active business 
life. Few callings make such varied and insistent de- 
mands or call for so great a variety of gifts. The prod- 
uct of such an experience, usually and naturally, is a man 
of action, a man of affairs, a business manager. A sec- 
retary of a large City Association, with 5,000 to 10,000 
members, combines the cares of a business corporation, 
a college, a social and athletic club, and a many-sided 
religious and moral propaganda. Hence, the secretary- 
ship demands and develops men who do things. But 
the thinkers, — the men who can study problems in a 
calm, logical, judicial fashion, and who know how to 
discover, collate, classify and interpret facts are few. 
Among the first ten of such men of the past twenty-five 
years we unhesitatingly place our friend. He was one 
of the most original thinkers I ever knew. His think- 
ing was marked by sanity, yet he was radically progress- 
ive. While he was quick to see a point, he seldom blun- 
dered on great questions. He thought and spoke with 
clearness, simplicity and compelling force. Sometimes 
in his eagerness to reach conclusions he was very blunt, 
but his friends knew that behind the spoken thought 
was genuine affection. One word will characterize his 
thinking. He was distinctive — different — one might al- 
most say, in a class by himself. This quality partly 
explains his relation to some of the great questions which 
have stirred the movement in North America during the 
past decade. His private office in the tower was the 
scene of numerous conferences in which State and In- 
ternational leaders sought his advice, and it was never 
sought in vain. The movement never so needed such 
men as today. The American Associations have suf- 
fered an irreparable loss in his promotion to the larger 
sphere of service. He was an Association statesman. 



14 



The growing efficiency of the movement is traceable to 
men of thought. 

Third. 

But Mr. Shurtleff was more than a thinker on ques- 
tions which other men faced or originated. He was a 
seer, a prophet. He not only discerned the signs of the 
times, he helped to make signs for other men to dis- 
cern. He was not what is popularly known as a pious 
man, but he was truly and deeply religious. A dozen 
years ago there was widespread dissatisfaction with 
the religious conditions in the Associations of North 
America. He alone, without authority, had the audacity 
to call a conference of twenty-five selected leaders to 
study the facts calmly and judicially. He made the 
selection of the men, planned the program and directed 
the Niagara Falls Conference in 1897. I regard this 
gathering as one of the chief factors in making possible 
the mighty forward movement in the religious activities 
of the City, Town and Railroad Associations, which we 
have seen since 1898. 

His keen eye saw in Augustus Nash in 1899 tne 
type of man needed to study local conditions and then 
discover and promote new types of religious work 
among men to fit the conditions. The magnificent ex- 
tension work which Mr. Nash has done in Cleveland, 
and which more than three hundred Associations are 
now doing in some measure, was made possible by the 
far-sightedness, undaunted courage and practical sym- 
pathy of our friend. In a letter which I received about 
a year ago he said : "Some people may not believe it, 
but I am more interested and concerned in the growth 
and success of the religious work than any other phase 
of our movement." 

What shall I say of his vision of social betterment? 
Who like him of all our leaders saw the wider meaning 
of the Associations' civic responsibility? He dreamed 
of and helped to form the Society for the Promotion of 
Social Service, was its President, and co-operated in 
planning the program for the conference to be held with- 
in a month at Chicago. He promptly recognized the 
significance of the call to the International Committee 
to project the Association idea into foreign lands, and 
its bearing on the world-wide work of the church. The 
Cleveland Association has been a generous supporter 



15 



of this larger enterprise. He saw visions many, but 
his feet were always on the solid earth, and his visions 
usually took tangible shape in personality, plan and 
scope, ways and means. He was a fine embodiment of 
the motto of the English Wesleyan Union for Social 
Service, "see and serve." As a New York paper has 
recently said of Elihu Root, "He was the man with 
the long look ahead." All such movements have their 
prophets. He was a prophet. 

Fourth. 

But Mr. Shurtleff might be all that has been said, 
and yet not have stamped himself so indelibly on the 
life of the Association movement. He was more than 
leader, thinker, seer, and it is the more that counts, 
that finally explains his abiding power. He was a 
prince, a true son of the King. He led men because he 
himself was led by a dominating loyalty to the King of 
Kings. He thought deeply and to a purpose because he 
tried "to think God's thoughts after Him." He was a 
deeply religious man, but his interpretation of religion 
was broader than that of most churchmen. He was a 
seer, because his eyes had been touched by the Most 
High: He believed in, prayed for, and expected the 
coming of the Kingdom of God. To him that Kingdom 
was the civilization of justice, kindness, purity and love 
which Jesus proclaimed, — a social order in which men 
will treat each other as true brothers of a beneficent 
Father. Civic righteousness, political purity, industrial 
peace, public health, clean sport, as well as personal 
evangelism and other forms of religious activity were 
to him parts of one comprehensive ideal. He believed 
that in the age-long contest between goodness and evil 
the stronger force must win, and the stronger force is 
goodness expressed in a thousand ways, but simple in 
its last analysis. It is comprehended in Paul's great 
words, "Love never faileth." He was a true idealist 
and he was able to see many of his ideals translated into 
concrete facts. He was an optimist, but he believed 
in changing social conditions and individual character 
before the new order could be expected. 

Professor Peabody of Harvard has said : "How to know 
enough to be of real use, how to see enough to be a 
real leader, how to be good enough to be good for some- 
thing — that is the new problem of Social Service." Mr. 



16 



Shurtlef f was all this. He knew ; he saw ; he was. In 
a letter written but a few weeks ago he says, "I be- 
lieve that Social Service is the coming great movement 
in the Associations; I have thought that for years. But 
for the crippling effects of illness, I should have tried 
to push it much farther during the past year. New 
men are coming to the front and it will go." Then he 
closed the letter with these pathetic words : "I am look- 
ing forward to one more year of effective service, and 
thank God with every breath I draw for the chance. I 
mean to make the most of it. Remember me once in 
a while when you pray." 

He was like his Master in his friendships. Differences 
of opinion never effected his personal attitude toward 
his friends. He attacked with incisiveness and his own 
type of vigor, policies and measures with which he dis- 
agreed, but he never attacked the men who were squarely 
trying to do good work in a way different from his own. 
He sometimes wounded his friends by his frankness, but 
they thank God today for the homely honesty and loyalty 
to the truth which were behind the strokes. His ideal of 
honor was as high as that of any man I have ever known. 
He had a perfect hatred for shams and snobberies. He 
had a passion for things fundamental. These are marks 
of a true son of the Kingdom. 

He was a lover of his city and its institutions. Of 
this others will speak, but it is so characteristic of him as 
a secretary, that I cannot refrain from referring to it. 
Lincoln's great words are fitting: 

"I like to see a man proud of the place in 
which he lives. I like to see a man who lives in 
it so live that his place will be proud of him. 
Be honest, but hate no one; overturn a man's 
wrongdoing, but do not overturn him, unless it 
must be done in overturning the wrong. Stand 
with anybody that stands right. Stand with him 
while he is right, and part with hjm when he 
goes wrong, — that is a trustworthy political 
chart as well as a reliable social compass." 

In conversation with a friend within a few days of his 
death, with characteristic unselfishness he expressed his 
keen regret at being unable to earn the salary he was 
being paid during his illness. He forgot the big debt 
which the Association and the city owed him — a debt 
which money can never repay. 



17 



His contribution to the American movement can be 
embraced in a single sentence. He dedicated to it the 
best service of which his great nature was capable. He 
gave his life to the secretaryship of the Young Men's 
Christian Association, and who could give more? A 
million dollars for Cleveland's greatly needed enlarged 
equipment would not compare with his gift. About four 
years ago he was tempted to resign and enter business. 
He was offered a salary several times that of an Amer- 
ican secretary. He faced the question fairly, fought the 
battle through and decided to give the balance of his life 
to this work. Few men have grown more than he during 
the past four years. 

Within a week of his death he said to a friend, "Tell 
the old man that I went down with the flag in my teeth." 
But he went down like Wolfe at Quebec — victorious. 
The heroism and self-control displayed during years of 
suffering were sublime. Wordsworth's words are appro- 
priate : 

"And Oh, when nature sinks as oft she may 
Through long liv'd pressure of obscure distress, 
Still to he strenuous for the bright reward 
And in the soul admit of no defeat; 
Brook no continuance of weak-mindedness — 
Great is the glory, for the strife is hard." 

Glen Shurtleff was a true son of God, a prince of the 
Kingdom, and as such he has gone to his inheritance of a 
larger and better service. Service is the highest mark of 
royalty. For did not Jesus say, "The Son of Man came 
not to be served, but to serve and to give His life a ran- 
som for many." 

"The path of duty is the path of Glory. 
He that ever following her commands 
And with the toil of heart on knees and hands 
Through the long gorge, to the far light, has won 
His path upward and prevailed — 
Has found the topping crags of Duty scaled, 
Are close upon the shining table-lands 
To which our God Himself is moon and sun." 



18 



ADDRESS OF MR. NEWTON D. BAKER, 
City Solicitor of Cleveland. 

A very few of us, who had given our whole hearts to 
Mr. Shurtleff, knew for some months or perhaps a little 
longer, that he had entered upon the final struggle with 
the great conqueror. Like most young people, with the 
thought born more of hope than of any sort of real con- 
viction, we imagined that man does not yield himself 
even unto death, utterly, except by the weakness of his 
own will; and we were so accustomed to seeing him 
triumph over every obstacle, that it seemed that the doc- 
tors must be mistaken. And so at the very last, although 
we had been forewarned, for he told us that he knew, it 
was a shock and a surprise that that great, dauntless, 
indomitable, intrepid soul had really an enemy that over- 
came him. 

It is difficult, as has been said, for any of us to put away 
our personal feeling long enough to talk about the man as 
he was to the world at large. As I have sat here this after- 
noon and heard men speaking of nation-wide and state-wide 
and world-wide interests in which Mr. Shurtleff figured as a 
leader, it has seemed to me almost incredible that we, after 
all, were all talking about one man. 

The part that is assigned to me is to discuss his states- 
manship, his relation to his city, his love for his city and 
his activity and his usefulness in it. When I was told 
that I would have this privilege, I began to run over the 
things that I had known him to be actively associated in, 
and I found that I would take all the time that I could be 
permitted to speak, in merely cataloging the activities in 
which he had been engaged. 

I remember very well indeed the earliest public 
activity with which I came into contact with Mr. Shurt- 
leff, and it is characteristic, I think, of the way he worked 
at everything. A member of the Council of Sociology, of 
which he was a very active organizing and directing 
member, had read a paper on juvenile delinquents, the 
treatment of dependent and delinquent children in the 
police courts as they were then organized ; and Mr. Shurt- 



19 



leff sent for perhaps half a dozen of us and told us the 
contents, the revelations of that paper, and then said, 
"Let us have a juvenile court." He never said, "I wish I 
could," but always, "Let us do so and so." And out 
of his suggestion, out of his direction, came the juvenile 
court system of Cleveland, following, I think, its earliest 
application anywhere. And I think perhaps I am sur- 
prising most of the people in this room this afternoon 
when I say — and I speak with knowledge — that the suc- 
cessful establishment and the successful early years of 
the whole juvenile court movement in this city are direct- 
ly, immediately, the result of Mr. Shurtlefl's personal ef- 
fort, suggestion, guidance and control. 

He was also an active member of this Chamber of 
Commerce in whose hall we meet today, active upon 
many of its committees, active on the Benevolent Asso- 
ciations committee, which has done great work and which 
relied much upon his counsel and advice. He was active 
on the committee on Public Sanitation, and through the 
efforts of that committee, often relying almost ex- 
clusively upon his advice and his large knowledge, we 
have in this city a sanitary code that has brought about 
a very remarkable improvement in the sanitary condi- 
tions, the housing conditions, the tenement house condi- 
tions, the milk problem for babies and the young, the 
street cleaning problem — to all of these Mr. Shurtleff gave 
his time and attention. 

He was a member of the boards of directors, I believe^ 
of every social settlement in the town ; I may be in error 
about that, but I know that he was of two of the largest, 
and if he was not of the others, I know that their prob- 
lems went through his trying-out process before they 
were solved. He was a member of the Municipal Asso- 
ciation and perhaps — I say perhaps — the most valuable 
member of it. I well remember when I first knew that 
Association Mr. Garfield was the chairman of its com- 
mittee, and yet day after day, in every municipal cam- 
paign, in every campaign of every kind in this com- 
munity, Mr. Shurtleff on that committee was one of the 
strong forces against partisanism and for political right- 
eousness and purity. He never formulated doctrines 
and pronounced theories or established and set up creeds 
of his manufacture in political and social matters, for 
others to follow. He pressed forward and upward in 
the Municipal Association and in his public activities, and he 



20 



looked upon partisanship, political prejudice, as he looked 
upon all other forms of prejudice, as the operations of the 
human intellect reduced to its lowest terms. 

So Mr. Shurtleff touched public officials in this com- 
munity. During one period of which I have close knowl- 
edge, he was the man most relied upon for advice, for 
the entire public school system of the city. Every public 
officer that I know has been to him for counsel upon 
some problem peculiar to his department, and yet never 
did any of them find him either too busy or without 
knowledge, or without inspiration and without help. I 
never knew him to be too busy to do anything that was 
worth doing. Even when he was, as has been said here, 
consciously fighting for every day of his life and seizing 
and tearing it away from what had seemed to be the 
last hour, he still had time to accept any burden that re- 
quired courage, sanity, calmness and faith. 

I remember when I first used to go to his office. It 
seemed to me that the little round room was the place 
where I got all my inspiration. And I wondered whether 
he had only that sort of influence upon young men, if 
when I grew older I would outgrow the need, learn to 
stand more firmly on my own feet, whether it was just 
with us young fellows that he seemed to be so per- 
fectly supreme. Many, many times as I grew older, and 
continued to go for counsel and for comfort, I found that 
when the door opened to receive me, it let out the wisest 
and the oldest and most experienced of my fellow citi- 
zens, one after another, and they had been in to go over 
their problems with Mr. Shurtleff. John Stuart Mill 
says in his autobiography that the reason that he always 
seemed to know more than his contemporaries, was that 
he had twenty-one years' start of all the men of his own age. 
The terrible educational discipline to which his father had 
subjected him had given him twenty-one years' start of all 
the other men of England of his age. And so Mr. Shurtleff 
seemed to me always to have had twenty-one years' start of 
all the rest of us. When we went to him with any sort of 
problem, it seemed to have been presented to his con- 
sciousness long ago, to have been reviewed and con- 
sidered and assigned its proper place. And while I have 
heard it said that he was unemotional, that he seemed 
always too calm, it was because we never any of us 
came upon him when he was thinking out his problems. He 
was ahead of us with them, and by the time we got to 



21 



them he was a long ways ahead, and having his hours of 
agony over the problems we will struggle with years 
hence. Perfectly calm, perfectly courageous, perfectly 
dauntless and unshaken at any sort of opposition, 
scarcely known often in movements of which he was the 
founder and inspiration — he rode no prancing charger, 
and wore no gold lace when the army was on parade, but 
when the battle was on there was Mr. Shurtleff leading, 
and the minute the victory was won and the adversary had 
come to surrender its sword, he was not there to receive it, 
but somebody else seemed to be in the place of leadership. 
Now that we have come to these exercises, one asks, 
inevitably, what can be done to perpetuate the memory 
and the influence of such a man? Nothing. Nothing 
whatever. The clay does not remember the face or the 
name of the potter, but it bears the ineffaceable stamp of 
his genius to its last hour. And so this community, 
where Mr. Shurtleff has molded and ennobled the char- 
acter of its young men, where he has liberated the polit- 
ical intelligence and the social activities of the commun- 
ity, where he has been one of the great forces in over- 
throwing cant and convention and tradition, where he has 
stood for the thing that was right and just and true, where 
there is no sort of public activity or public institution that 
has not had its contribution from his apparently inex- 
haustible strength, in this community which has stamped 
all over it the mark of his personality, to pick out any one 
place or any one kind of monument seems scarcely ade- 
quate. The thing for us to do and which we cannot 
help doing is to remember the beauty and the excellence 
of his example, to continue to feel the force of his tre- 
mendous influence; not to stop and admire, as he would 
not have had us do, particular acts of his, and thus con- 
vert them into obstacles to further progress, but to press 
on along the path where his feet were so swift and secure, 
the path which leads to the wider spread of happiness, 
the opening up of a better future, of more equal oppor- 
tunities, for the cultivation of the moral and emotional 
side of the life of this city and its people. 



22 



ADDRESS OF THE RT. RBV. CHARLES D. 
WILLIAMS, 

Bishop of Michigan. 

I am sure that I voice the common feeling of all that 
have to stand before you today, when I say that we never 
have had a more difficult occasion upon which to speak; 
difficult in the very wealth of material from which we 
must choose our brief remarks, and still more difficult 
because of the restraint or limitation that we must lay 
upon ourselves. 

We all who stand here were intimate friends of him 
whose memory we honor. There come surging into our 
hearts very precious memories ; memories of close in- 
timacies, memories of words of counsel with him, when 
we went out from his presence wiser, stronger and braver 
for the tasks that were laid upon us. Of all those things 
we dare not speak, dare not because of our own feeling, 
dare not because they are too personal and too sacred to 
lay before the public, even though that public be made up 
of those who knew, who honored and who loved him. 
And so we must confine ourselves to the more public 
aspects of his character and his career. 

That character and career were very many-sided. It 
touched the life of the community in every possible rela- 
tionship. I am to speak of Mr. Shurtleff as a churchman, 
and yet I think the topic, the theme, is too limited for the 
subject. I shall not be able to confine myself strictly to 
it, because the man was so big minded and so large 
hearted that he could not be defined within the limits of 
any one particular body. 

His religious life was so full and so abundant that it 
overflowed the banks of the narrow stream in which it ran. 
And yet Mr. Shurtleff was a churchman, a churchman with 
a capital C, if you choose to put it so. Nearly everything 
which he was could be spelled with capitals throughout. 
He was a capital man. He never went into anything half- 
heartedly or luke-warmly; he put the whole of his intense, 
earnest nature into whatever he took up. And so it was with 
his church. For thirteen years I knew him in close inti- 



23 



macy, as a member of my flock, regular always in attendance 
upon the means of grace, ( I knew that I should find him in 
his place at church, unless he were out of town, or detained 
by some very insistent engagement) devoted in his wor- 
ship, nourishing his spiritual life with the sacrament of 
the altar, a most generous, appreciative, sympathetic 
hearer of the message as the preacher delivered it. No 
preacher had a more sympathetic, interested hearer than 
he was ; not full of the false compliments that you so often 
hear, not full of flattery, but seeing the point that you 
were trying perhaps clumsily to make, appreciating the 
position you took and sympathizing with what you were 
trying to say. He was always interested and active in the 
work for the parish. I leaned upon him for thirteen 
years, leaned constantly and heavily upon him for coun- 
sel and advice, and it was never wanting; it was always 
wise, always far-seeing, always freely and generously 
given. And more than that, there was never a busier 
man in the city than he, and that activity was never self- 
directed, but always in the service of others. And yet 
never did I find a man more ready to respond to any addi- 
tional demand that was made upon him. 

And more than that, not only was he regular in his 
attendance upon the means of grace; active and inter- 
ested in the practical work of the church, but he was an 
intelligent churchman. He loved his church, loved it for 
all its positive values and validities, loved its beautiful 
liturgy, its reverent worship, its ordered methods, its 
sanity and wholesomeness of discipline, its insistence 
upon principles and neglect of trivial details. He loved 
its broadmindedness, its spiritual culture. He loved in- 
telligently all the constructive and positive principles, 
values and validities of his church. But his churchman- 
ship never consisted in what the churchmanship of so 
many ardent churchmen does seem to consist, in ex- 
clusive claims for his own denomination, in denials or 
negations of the values and validities of any other form of 
Christianity. As I say, his religious life was too rich, 
too full, to be contained in any narrow channels. He was 
too big hearted to be simply and exclusively a church- 
man. His sympathy went out to everybody, everywhere. 
He loved the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity. He never 
mistook Churchianity for Christianity. He was always a 
Christian first and a churchman second. 



24 



And so there is just one thing I want to speak of, and 
that seems to me to be the central thing in his life. You 
have been hearing about the many aspects of that life in 
which he touched the public, in the community, in 
the state, in the country at large. But behind all these 
things, fusing them into a unity, was the man's re- 
ligious faith, a vital and a virile faith ; not a narrow, 
dogmatic faith, bound up with this or that form of doc- 
trine or creed. Nay, to these things he maintained a free 
and flexible relationship, so that changes in the mere 
forms of the expression of his faith didn't involve at all its 
fundamental or essential truths. But his faith was a per- 
sonal faith, a personal loyalty and trust in and devotion to 
his personal Lord and Master Jesus Christ. That lay be- 
hind everything, that inspired everything that he did. In 
these days I know it is fashionable in some quarters to 
say that religious faith is obsolete, that it is not neces- 
sary to the formation of character or to the inspiration of 
human service. I am afraid a little of that tendency; I am 
afraid that if we carry on that divorce of the positive faith 
from the formation of character, we shall find that we cut off 
the tree from its roots, and go on hanging artificial flowers 
and fruit on it and waiting for the tree to bud and bear. 
It seems to me like the sun-light with the actinic rays taken 
out of it. The Christian philosophy is different from that. 
Jesus Christ says, "I am the vine, ye are the branches." 
The apostle's definition of it was, "The life that I live I 
live by the faith of the Son of God." More than that, the 
philosophy of human service in the Christian religion 
is expressed in that one word of Jesus, "Inasmuch as you 
did it to one of the least of these my little ones, you did 
it unto me." Put all your humanitarianism against the 
fruitful abundance of those few words, and see how in- 
significant one is compared with the other. For the 
Christian it is Jesus that is crucified in every sin, Jesus 
that leads in the path of every duty, Jesus that is served 
in every service to brother men. And I think that was 
the philosophy of our friend's life. "The love of Christ 
constraineth us." Quiet and undemonstrative, yet all 
through his life and character you could feel that power 
of his faith. It was the lineaments of "the mind that was in 
Christ Jesus" that one discovered in his character, that mind 
that always puts obligations above rights, duty above 
personal claims and privileges. His was a fountain mind, 
rather than a whirlpool mind. You felt it in the very 



25 



positiveness and aggressiveness of his goodness. There 
are people who have just enough religion to keep them- 
selves from the taint of moral corruption, keep them- 
selves unspotted from the world, a sort of mummified 
religion, that consists of a moral asepsis; and there are 
others that have in them the vitality of the Master, and 
you feel, whenever you go near them, that virtue goes 
out of them. And I think that everyone personally asso- 
ciated with Mr. Shurtleff felt that in him; they felt, 
whenever they touched him, that they went away in- 
spired for their work. 

And even in his social service, it was not the work of 
a mere social reformer, who sees only sporadic wrongs 
here and there to be righted ; but there was a great dom- 
inating vision before this man's eyes, a vision of the 
Kingdom of God which Jesus Christ came to establish in 
this world ; not an ecclesiastical organization, but a celestial 
civilization coming down from heaven to take possession of 
the earth, human society organized according to the will 
of God — "Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth 
as it is in heaven." So everywhere, back of every aspect 
of his life, fusing it into unity, inspiring it with its 
energy, was this vital and virile faith of the man. 

May God help us to take that lesson away with us to- 
day. If we do, then to us, as to him, "to live will be Christ 
and to die will be gain." The life of abundant and many- 
sided service here is closed; the life, I believe, of larger, 
more abundant service is opening to him somewhere else, 
for that is the way in which God always rewards his 
faithful servants, namely, with larger opportunities for 
that which is the very joy of their existence — service. 
"Well done, good and faithful servant. Thou hast been 
faithful in few things, I will make thee master over many 
things. Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord." 



26 



PRAYER OF REV. DAN F. BRADLEY, 
Pastor Pilgrim Congregational Church, Cleveland. 

Our Father, our hearts' desire is toward Thee, toward 
our home. There is a land of the blessed, where no sun 
shall rise, for days are not measured there nor is there 
any moon there to give light by night. Thou art the 
light thereof, and all who are gathered therein have 
eternal joy and eternal peace; joy that leaves no regrets 
behind, and peace that chideth not. We do not know, 
we cannot conceive what that life must be in which the 
body is dropped and the processions of this world are 
passed away and only the spirit is left. We do not un- 
derstand its law, nor its experience, nor anything of it 
save that we shall be as Thou art, for Thy glory shall 
be our light, and that Thou art the cause of that joy 
which shall forever abide and fill the cups that are never 
empty. We rejoice, our Father, that there is a road 
which mortal feet can never tread, but which is familiar 
to those in the spirit land. We think that the distance 
between them and us is not very great, though we can- 
not by our bodily organs discern the way to the great life 
that is beyond, nor understand why it is that they who 
are so silent and so separate from us should not be near 
to us and fulfill the functions of love toward us. Thou 
understandest it, and that is enough. Since it is Thy 
good pleasure that the veil should be dropped between 
our seeing and the things to be seen, we will wait until 
Thy hand shall lift it or bear us through. 

Something has been interpreted to us by Thy spirit, but 
more remains uninterpreted. The height, the depth, the 
breadth of the love of God as manifested through Jesus Christ 
cannot be known by these narrow, selfish hearts of ours. 
But there is a heaven made by Thy love, a realm of joy 
unbounded by human thought and unspeakable by 
human language. And into that city of blessedness how 
many have entered that have been near to us, that have 
taught us, at whose knees we first called Thee Father; 
they have accomplished their warfare, their conflict is 
over, and they rest. We rejoice that there is the ministry 



27 



and the communion of saints. And if they could speak 
again in human language as once they spoke, what sweet 
words of encouragement they would breathe to us, 
urging us to be patient to the end, trusting in God. How 
boundless must be God's greatness to them, how strange 
the unbelief in which they dwelt on earth. How strange 
must seem our lower state to them who glow and rejoice 
with joy unspeakable and full of glory. 

Almighty God, with whom do live the spirits of those 
who depart hence in the Lord, we give Thee hearty 
thanks for the good example of this Thy servant, who 
having finished his course in faith, doth now rest from 
his great labors. We beseech Thee that all those who 
have departed in the faith of Thy name may have perfect 
consummation of bliss in everlasting glory. We humbly 
beseech Thee, Father, to raise us from the death of sin 
and into the life of righteousness, that when we shall 
depart this life we may rest in our Lord Jesus Christ and 
be found acceptable in Thy sight and receive Thy bless- 
ing which Thy beloved Son pronounced to all who love 
and fear Thee — "Come, ye blessed children of my 
Father, receive the kingdom prepared for you from the 
beginning of the world." 

The grace of our Lord Jesus and the love of God and 
the fellowship of the Holy Ghost, be with us all ever- 
more. Amen. 



28 



EDITORIALS. 

From the Cleveland Plain Dealer, January J, ipop: 
The Late Mr. Shurtleff. 

By the death of Secretary Shurtleff, Cleveland loses a useful 
citizen whose activities were by no means circumscribed by the 
limits of his official duties. He was much more than the head 
of the Young Men's Christian Association, for he early recog- 
nized that a man's value to his community was to be measured, 
not alone by the manner in which he performed the tasks that 
came to him, but as much by the activity and intelligence with 
which he sought out tasks to be performed. Hundreds of young 
men have lost a personal friend and many organizations for 
the betterment of the city have lost an impelling spirit by his 
untimely end. 

It will be difficult to secure a satisfactory successor to the 
dead chief of the Y. M. C. A. The organization is an increas- 
ingly important factor in the city's welfare. New projects are 
in contemplation, which demand the best efforts of a big-brained 
man, and the work of selecting a new secretary capable of meet- 
ing the necessities of the situation is one demanding careful 
thought and serious reflection. 



From the Cleveland Leader, January y, ipop: 
The Shurtleff Example. 

Young men often feel that to be much concerned with re- 
ligion is likely to detract from their reputation for manliness 
and strength and interfere with the mastery over persons and 
conditions to which they aspire. They fear to be zealous in the 
things of the spirit for fear of losing ground in the confidence 
of their fellow workers in the business of the world. 

It is hardly necessary to argue the folly of this point of 
view in the light of such a career as that which has just been 
ended, far too soon, by the death of Glen K. Shurtleff. He was 
first and last and all the time, from early manhood, a worker 
in the Young Men's Christian Association. He made it his busi- 
ness, his life calling. Always and everywhere, he was known 
as a man devoted to the promotion of Christian living and 
Christian faith. He was much more than it implies to say that 
a man is a lay preacher. 

Yet for many years Glen K. Shurtleff was one of the strong 
citizens of Cleveland, one of the leaders in civic affairs to whom 
the community turns in time of need — the need of wise counsel, 
earnest effort and absolutely sincere devotion to duty. He was 
never doubted, never denied full confidence and respect. He was 
instrumental in getting big things done and righting serious 
mistakes. In every sense he merited the high place he held as a 
citizen and a man among strong men. 

There is a potent moral tonic in such a life. 



29 



From The Outlook, January 23, ipop: 

A Religious Statesman. 

There was industrial war in the city. The bitterness of the 
conflict spread through all classes. The population was divided 
into two camps. Passion had expressed itself in violence. At 
last both sides agreed to arbitration, and each side selected a 
partisan for the arbitration board. Then each side indepen- 
dently approached a man to be the judge between the two. 
And when the fact became public it was found that both sides 
had made their request to the same man. The city was Cleve- 
land; the conflict was the street railway strike; and the man 
was Glen Kassimer Shurtleff. 

A great national organization had been divided. People 
equally disinterested in aim had been at cross purposes; but, 
seeing the waste of division, they were looking for a practicable 
method of agreement. They found a basis of union, and re- 
established the organization as a single body. Few, however, 
outside the immediate circle of leaders knew that the man 
whose advice they sought and whose counsel influenced them 
was Glen Kassimer Shurtleff. 

How many people turned to him for judgment no one 
knows. He was reticent. Some who gauge the warmth of a 
man's emotions by the ardor of his speech called him cold. 
His amazing self-control, that enabled him to bear quietly for 
fifteen years great responsibilities without letting people know 
that he was also bearing the burden of uncured ailments, was 
misinterpreted by the thoughtless as insensibility. But the 
power of maintaining a judicial attitude, so that, as a friend 
of his has said, many times he passed judgment upon a case 
and then paid the fine himself, and the power of reserve, so 
pronounced that many of those who owed him much never 
knew they owed him anything, were really possible only be- 
cause there was in him the power of deep feeling. And it was 
just because he could and did feel deeply and therefore could 
see into the real wrongs from which men suffer that so many 
resorted to him for decision. 

To most readers of The Outlook Mr. Shurtleff's name is 
unknown. They will ask, Who was he? A great jurist? A dip- 
lomat in the foreign service of the nation? The president of 
some university? He might have been any one of these, but 
he was not. He was the Secretary of the Young Men's Chris- 
tian Association of Cleveland. Why is it that this answer seems 
a disappointment? Why is it that it seems altogether incom- 
mensurate with the service he rendered? Is it not because 
religious leaders, clerical and lay, have not as a rule seen in 
their positions, as Mr. Shurtleff did in his, the opportunity for 
as great, as extended, as statesmanlike leadership as they see 
on the bench, in the diplomatic service, or in the headship of 
a university? 

Mr. Shurtleff was a statesman in religion. In the first 
place, no man in the country had more clearly diagnosed the 
ills of society. He was not content with the treatment of the 
superficial hurts of men; he looked to find the fundamental 
wrongs. While other men were satisfied to exhort drunkards 
to reform, he searched to find the forces that made drunkards. 



30 



While other men were satisfied to oppose skepticism, he searched 
to find the forces that stole from men their faith. While other 
men were satisfied to ease a man here and there from the dis- 
comforts of poverty, he searched for the wrongs or defects in 
society that made countless families poor. As a leader in the 
Young Men's Christian Association he was fearless, indefatig- 
able, masterful, and quiet. He was only the head of one city 
Association; but he had the power and authority of a national 
officer. Indeed, of all the men in the organization, he was 
responsible, as far as any one man can be, for its pro- 
gressive tendencies. From the discomfort of such leadership 
he never shrank. It was sometimes more than discomfort; for 
he was sometimes abused and often misrepresented. He never 
flinched. And when he felt he had to strike — at some pettiness 
or humbug or shallowness or complacent vanity — he struck 
hard. But for the honor of this leadership he apparently had 
never a thought. Indeed, he avoided credit that was due him 
as most men avoid trouble. One had only to work a little with 
him to see how successfully and irresistibly he effaced himself. 
The routine of his office he administered with great efficiency; 
but he administered it through others. He gave his own time 
and strength to the big things. 

During the period in which he multiplied the membership 
of his Association, and multiplied even more the directions of 
its activity, he was serving his city, his state, and his country 
in manifold ways. He was, it will be generally admitted, the 
moving spirit in that group of men to whose efforts is due in 
the main the elevation of Cleveland's municipal government 
to a place in the front rank in the United States; he was a 
moving spirit, too, in the most important social activities of 
the Cleveland Chamber of Commerce, which have made it one 
of the most beneficent local institutions in America; he ini- 
tiated those shop meetings which, as they have spread through- 
out the United States, have not only brought religion into the 
factory, but have still more brought a knowledge of the life of 
the toilers into the minds of religious leaders, and which may 
well be regarded as one of the chief sources, if not the chief 
source, of the revolutionized attitude of the church toward the 
workingman; he was the deviser of many a programme which, 
innocuous enough on its face, resulted in the utterance of plain 
truth to men who were till then complacent and inert because of 
ignorance, and brought about new plans for which the Association 
has since received highest praise; he also was responsible, in 
great degree, for the growth in dignity and orderliness in the 
methods of Association leaders; and to a still greater degree 
for the growth in tolerance and co-operation with all forces, 
Protestant or Catholic, Christian or Jewish, even religious or 
non-religious, that make for righteousness. 

Mr. Shurtleff's death in Cleveland on January 5 makes va- 
cant the place of a great religious leader. The movement to 
bring the message of Christianity to bear upon social conditions 
is as distinctive of our day as were the Methodist revival and 
the English Reformation of their time. In that movement Mr. 
Shurtleff was one of the chief directors. If he had been a bishop 
of the Episcopal Church instead of a layman, he would have 
been a great bishop; he was none the less great because he 



31 



occupied a place that has no glamour of tradition, no great 
public conspicuousness. In his life, of only forty-eight years, 
he showed to laymen and ministers alike what a religious leader 
in this age may he. He set a pattern of religious statesmanship 
which every man in a position of religious leadership may, in 
his own way, follow. 



From Association Men, February, ipop: 

Glen K. Shurtleff — Christian, Citizen, Secretary. 

He was unblinded by any prejudice and unter- 
rified by any opposition. He was a calm, brave, 
just and useful man. Every public and private 
movement for the general good in Cleveland had 
his sympathy and support. I never knew a 
saner, finer intelligence, purer or more inspiring 
spirit. — Cleveland's City Solicitor. 

The ablest secretary of his generation, one of the most use- 
ful citizens of his city, one of the most constructive characters 
of its churches, Glen K. Shurtleff passed away at Cleveland 
January 5. He fought for life that he might spend it in serv- 
ice, and for health that he might help men. He wrote but a 
few months ago: "I hope to live long enough to do my work, 
then I shall be glad to go." When told that he was near the 
end, he sent this message to a loved fellow worker: "Tell the 
old man when you write that I went down with the flag in my 
teeth," and he did. Although but forty-eight at his death, he 
left a record of twenty-five years of effective service in the 
Young Men's Christian Association that will abide. 

Mr. Shurtleff's greatest work was done in Cleveland, yet 
in his first secretaryship at Utica, a $100,000 building was 
erected which marked a new type and advanced the standard 
for a smaller city. His far-sighted plans at Denver were cut 
short by the financial crisis in that city. His fourteen years' 
secretaryship in Cleveland showed the greatness of the man as 
a constructive Christian citizen. He attained a position of trust 
and confidence such as has been enjoyed by few men in re- 
ligious circles. He was a member of the Chamber of Commerce 
and was called one of its most influential men. He was an 
intimate friend and adviser of the Mayor and of the heads of 
commissions and departments. He enjoyed the confidence of 
the leaders of the Roman Catholic, the Jewish, as well as the 
evangelical churches of the city. It was he who led a group 
of men in movements for the betterment of social conditions, 
and to his initiative was due the establishment of benevolent 
pawnshops, the Juvenile Court, public playgrounds, and many 
other projects for society's service. His judgment, justice and 
ability had become so thoroughly recognized that he was named 
the first of three to arbitrate the bitterly fought street rail- 
way strike, and then both the company and the employees 
independently named him to represent them as the sole ar- 



32 



biter. He was appointed a Jury Commissioner, and under his 
direction the high class of jurors selected set a new standard 
for the county. Of his services as a citizen the Cleveland 
Leader said: "He was one of the strongest citizens of Cleve- 
land, to whom the community turned in time of need — the need 
of wise counsel, earnest effort and absolutely sincere devotion 
to duty. He was never doubted, never denied full confidence 
and respect. He was instrumental in getting big things done 
and righting serious mistakes. In every sense he merited the 
high place he held as a citizen and a man among strong men. 
There is a potent moral tonic in such a life." 

In his relation to national, state and local Association prob- 
lems, as well as to public questions, he was far-sighted and 
fearless, hating shams, impatient with pettifogging methods, 
disgusted with unthinking narrowness. He was a constructor 
of force. He smote and spared not — gentle, calm and gracious 
as he was. No man had a tenderer heart, yet he struck to the 
center of things, and to many of his closest friends was an 
unsparing critic. Honest to the core, he sought what was right 
and real. One co-laborer writes of him: "He was most char- 
itable to other men's weaknesses when they were honestly seek- 
ing to overcome them, but he was the sternest of men toward 
one who deliberately did wrong or consciously failed to do his 
duty." 

Mr. Shurtleff was often misunderstood. Only those close 
to him knew the tenderness of his heart; knew the depth of 
his prayer life, understood the strength of his emotions which, 
though they might not burst forth in passionate platform ap- 
peal, led him intensely to seek out the causes and to remedy 
the conditions which lay at the root of the riot and rottenness 
of life, the rebellion against faith, the pains of poverty and the 
wrongs in society. Men who worked with him loved him. A 
visiting secretary who had been his harshest critic said after 
a visit to Cleveland: "Shurtleff is a wonderful man. Only 
for a great leader, would the men of his force die, and they 
would for Glen Shurtleff." Unquestionably, he recruited more 
able men for the secretaryship than any other man. He was 
able to work with men who disagreed with him. One such 
writes: "I disagreed with him once over a certain policy, and 
offered to resign from the board. He smiled and said it was 
not necessary, and that he appreciated the co-operation of men 
who disagreed with him as fully as those who agreed." And 
that man writes: "I am his debtor for a broader view and a 
larger heart and the knowledge that men can pull together with- 
out thinking together; that we may speak different spiritual 
tongues and yet put in a full day's work side by side. It took 
some of us intense evangelicals years to comprehend his purposes 
and plans. When we came to really know him, we found his 
plans included all we could desire and more than we could 
comprehend. He was always a considerate Christian gentle- 
man." 

He got the best work from the men associated with him 
by allowing them the greatest liberty. He was always willing 
and ready to confer with the heads of departments, but left 
the man free to work out his own plans. An associate writes, 
"He was one of the few men I have ever known who was big 



33 



enough not to allow personal likes and dislikes to enter into 
his work." What man, but he, would say when selecting a 
man for a difficult enterprise: "That man wrote me the most 
abusive letter I ever received, but I think he is the man for 
the place." And he was. 

"He bound men to him by the bonds of friendship." One 
of his young men writes: "There are scores of us who claim 
him as 'my best friend,' and will claim him so long as our 
ideals are straight and our lives as near our ideals as we can 
make them; and if in the years our lives fall short, then that 
is the measure of his death. Friendship with Mr. Shurtleff 
meant ideals and rectitude. No man who called him best 
friend ever did a little thing or a wrong thing but that he 
thought of that quiet, pure, square man and was ashamed." 
He had great sympathy for men who were down and out, and 
to our personal knowledge more than one hopeless case who 
had worn both broadcloth and stripes was put on his feet by 
Shurtleff's faith and heart and hand. Strange as it may seem, 
there was a spirit of the rescue mission worker in him. 

He gave boys' work throughout the country an impetus, 
championing the cause, not from any sentimental standpoint, 
but from that of the best returns from the investment of time, 
energy and money. He helped to shape the forward movement 
in Bible study. It was he who selected Mr. Nash to develop 
the shop Bible class work. 

To one of the many friends who last June congratulated 
him on the attainment of his twenty-fifth year in the secre- 
taryship, he wrote: "I cannot express to you the very great 
appreciation which I have for the large number of letters sent 
me by the old fellows who have stood with me in this work 
for so many years." He wanted to live that he might work. 
Under tne impending cloud he wrote from a sanitarium on 
September 7: 

"I am looking forward to one more year of effective serv- 
ice and thank God with every breath I draw for the chance. 
I mean to make the most of it. 

"Well, old man, remember me once in a while when you 
pray. There are but few of the old guard left and we must 
stand together to the last ditch. Affectionately, 

"Glen." 

In the same letter he wrote of his convictions on Social 
Service (he was a founder and president of the Society for 
the Promotion of Social Service) : "I believe that social service 
is the coming great movement in the Association — I have 
thought so for years. But for the crippling effect of illness 
I should have tried to press it much farther during the past 
year. New men are coming to it now and it will go." 

We must quote from a notable editorial in The Outlook of 
January 23, page 146, under "A Religious Statesman." "If 
he had been a bishop of the Episcopal Church instead of a 
layman, he would have been a great bishop; he was none the 
less great because he occupied a place that has no glamor of 
tradition, no great public conspicuousness. In his life, of only 
forty-eight years, he showed to laymen and ministers alike 
what a religious leader in this age may be. He set a pattern 
of religious statesmanship which every man in a position of 
religious leadership may, in his own way, follow." 



34 



Why that steady, relentless pressure, that sustained strain 
that spent the strength and snapped the cord of life in Glen 
Shurtleff? Why that sacrificial sympathy, that vicarious suf- 
fering for others, that long sustained fight for the man and 
the boy who was going down? Why did he refuse a salary 
of $10,000 and an interest in a business? Why did he bear 
the pain of being misunderstood and grossly abused at times? 
Why was he able to draw to himself men of vastly differing 
theology and temperament, blend them in a great organization 
and direct them in effective service? Why was he impatient 
with the well-meant but superficial in "religious work"? Why 
was he able to help the confused man who was losing his 
faith? Read the answer in the following experience: He had 
thought things through. He felt the grip of sin on the world, 
he knew that there was salvation — a Savior — a Father. He 
endured as seeing Him who is invisible. F. W. O. 



How Mr. Shurtleff Helped a Confused Man. 

I desire to pay a tribute to my friend, but it must be done 
anonymously because of the very personal nature of the in- 
cident. I was passing through a period of intellectual uncer- 
tainty some years ago when the foundations of my belief were 
shaken and nothing seemed to remain. The experience lasted 
for many months with varying degrees of severity. A rigid 
interpretation of some truths here and a wrong emphasis 
there, and besides these a failure to understand that the mere 
head acceptance of certain doctrines can never take the place 
of a heart assimilation of the kernel of truth they contain; 
all these things had wrought havoc with my faith. I went to 
see Shurtleff. Even before he knew the nature of my mission 
he said, "Have you time enough so that we can have a good 
visit?" "Well, come at two o'clock and we will finish the day 
together." This was more than I had expected him to give 
out of his busy life, although we had been friends for years. 
The afternoon was spent in the "den" upstairs in the tower, 
where so many of his friends have visited with him. After an 
hour's talk about men and things that showed the breadth of 
his knowledge of life as well as the depth of his insight into 
many perplexing questions, I broached the reason of my visit. 
For the fourth or fifth time a messenger knocked on the door 
on some errand or to hand him the card of some visitor, the 
latter being the cause of the latest interruption. "Tell him that 
I am engaged, and will not be able to see him. And please 
tell everybody that I am having an important conference and 
cannot be seen today." I interrupted to say that I was unwill- 
ing to interfere with his business for so long a time, but he 
would not listen. "This is the most important business I have 
to do today," he said, and then, "So you are having intellectual 
difficulties? Tell me all about it." When I had done telling 
my story, aided by a few keen questions, he said nothing for 
a while, and then in that quiet undertone he so often used in 
saying the things he felt most deeply, he said: "I know all 
about it. It was years ago that I passed through the same 



35 



kind of an experience. I know the feeling of perplexity and 
hopelessness, too, but it came all right with me and it will 
come right with you. There are just two fundamental facts 
of life to tie fast to in your uncertainty. They are sin and 
salvation. Do you believe in sin? In the reality of it? If 
you do, then do you believe in salvation? If you come to see 
these two great facts of life clearly you will find that every 
important question that troubles you will be settled. They will 
lead to right thinking about Jesus and the Father and about 
every other important question. If a man knows in his heart 
that there is really such a thing as salvation from sin and lets 
that fact get a grip on his life he will not go far wrong in his 
thinking." 

When the afternoon was over he asked me if I could see 
him the next day, so the next afternoon was spent with him 
again, to the strengthening of my own inner life, as he opened 
his heart to me and let me feel the strength of his friendship. 
Others helped me through the experience, but none so much 
as he. To me he will always be the strong friend who knew 
in his heart that "there is really such a thing as salvation 
from sin," and proved it by his life of service for men. 



From Ohio Association News, February, ipop: 
Secretary — Statesman. 

The greatest secretary since Robert McBurney is dead. 
What a discerner he was. How readily he detected the wrong 
bent in a man, even at a distance. How he followed the trail 
of new men of likely temperament. How rapt and calm he 
became over other men's life problems. Who has not felt the 
rest and strength of a full-breasted confession in that entow- 
ered room. 

He challenged the respect of those who disagreed with him. 
Timid souls were shocked at his audacity; they were looking 
back and around — he was looking out and forward. Those 
who worshipped precedent were lined up on the other side. 
Those who thought he harbored a secret will to carry off the 
main pillars of the ancient creed, the "old standards" dis- 
played their lack of knowledge of his real intent. No one mis- 
understood him who really knew him. 

Loyalty to Jesus Christ was with him the chief passion; 
loyalty to an institution was not. The church even was not his 
God. He was a churchman but his Bishop said at the Mem- 
orial Service held at the Chamber of Commerce: "He never 
mistook Churchianity for Christianity. Personal faith, personal 
devotion to Jesus Christ chiefly characterized him." 

Bishop Williams referred to the fact that no preacher ever 
had a more attentive or appreciative listener. "I leaned con- 
stantly upon him for thirteen years, but he made no excessive 
claims for his own denomination. He was too big for that; 
his life touched the life of the community in every possible 
relationship." 

Newton D. Baker, Esquire, City Solicitor, knew of no more 
dauntless and intrepid soul. When Mr. Shurtleff proposed a 



36 



great reform in Cleveland he did not say "I wish we could 
get a Juvenile Court," but he said "Let us have a Juvenile Court," 
and its final success was almost wholly due to his suggestions, 
leadership and control. The modernizing of the public san- 
itation of the city was almost wholly due to his advice. He 
was a member of the Municipal Association of Cleveland that 
purified its politics, and was the strongest member of it. 

Mr. Baker also observed "that he did not bind himself to 
a definition of his beliefs, he went forward. Every public 
officer that I know in the city has been to him for counsel 
upon the peculiar work of his department and no one ever 
came away without being helped." 

And we must say as does Mr. Fenn, his president and 
life-long friend, that we might as well try to describe Mt. 
Blanc on a postal as Mr. Shurtleff in a few words. And as 
does Mr. Wilbur of Dayton, "Many a man feels orphaned by 
his death. The sense of personal loss is so great as to ob- 
scure for the moment the great void in leadership of the 
Cleveland work." 

He was a friend, a mighty human friend, and thus he will 
always live in the memory of the men who worked near him. 

ROBERT E. LEWIS. 



We knew he was a great man in wisdom, in counsel, and in 
judgment, while he was with us, and as time passes we realize 
more and more that we comprehended but feebly the breadth, 
the height, and the depth of his character. In what he was the 
strongest it is hard to tell, but first of all and through all we 
cannot eliminate the fact that he was a Christian, and that 
all else was secondary to that and largely dependent upon it. 
He was a master of men and methods, born to be a leader, but 
with a modesty that always preferred and insisted upon the 
second rather than the first place. In him, I take it, more than 
in any other man I have ever known, was the manifestation of 
the highest ideals of a representative of the Young Men's Chris- 
tian Association. 

Personally, I count it one of the highest privileges of my 
life to have been so closely associated with him for the past 
fifteen years, and his memory will ever be a source of inspira- 
tion in all the future of my life. 

Cleveland. S. P. FENN. 



To most Association men, probably, Mr. Shurtleff was the 
cool, deliberate, far-sighted leader with first thought of the work 
to be accomplished. 

To me he was always the quiet, gentle, thoughtful friend, 
whose counsel was golden; whose companionship was delight- 
ful; whose highest aim was to give his life for his Master — 
Jesus Christ. 

Dayton. E. L. SHUEY. 

37 



Only those who knew Mr. Shurtleff most intimately really 
knew the man. Those who knew him only slightly stood in awe 
of him but those who knew him best found in him a sympa- 
thetic friend. 

He has given boys' work throughout the country an im- 
petus, by his championing the cause, not from any sentimental 
standpoint, but from a standpoint of the best return from the 
investment of time, energy and money. 

Locally, his interests were broad, as evinced by his con- 
nection with the social settlement work and the public bath 
house and playground movement. To him the boy was more 
than the organization and any effort which helped the boy had 
his hearty support. His deep personal interest is shown by a 
statement he made a year or so ago. He said, "If I had my work 
to do over again I'd turn my effort to work among boys; the 
results are the most satisfactory." He got the best work from 
men working with him by allowing the greatest liberty. He 
was always willing and ready to confer with the heads of de- 
partments but always left the man free to work out his own 
plans. 

He was one of the few men I have ever known who was 
big enough not to allow personal likes and dislikes to enter his 
work. 

Cleveland. M. D. CRACKEL. 



No man that I know has seen more clearly than Mr. Shurt- 
leff, the forces which are at work in our religious and social 
life and no man has done more to direct those forces to Chris- 
tian ends. 

New York City. ERNEST HAMLIN ABBOTT. 



Mr. Shurtleff has always impressed me as a man of strong 
personality and convictions of his own, and with the courage 
of his convictions he commanded respect of those who differed 
from him, as well as the love of those who knew him. His 
judgment of men in the Association work seemed to be unerring. 
A recognized leader among and by all classes of men, he was 
always ready to counsel and advise with young men, no matter 
what their station in life. 

Dayton. THOMAS ELDER. 



I was very greatly impressed with his magnificent spirit, 
his wisdom and the power to make things come to pass. More 
than once I was impressed with the feeling that he was really 
the Gamaliel of the whole State Committee. The cause of the 
Young Men's Christian Association and the community in gen- 
eral has suffered much by his untimely death. 

Medina. E. R. ROOT. 



38 



Glen K. Shurtleff was one of those broadminded men who 
widened the scope of Association work so as to bring within its 
influence all men who believed in God and the salvation of 
mankind through His son, Jesus Christ. 

Hamilton. W. L. TOBEY. 



Of the many high qualities which our Ohio leader pos- 
sessed, the one which appealed to me as strongly as any, I 
believe, was that kind and gentle spirit which was always with 
him. This multiplied the power of his thought leadership, it 
seems to me. His life was a great inspiration to me personally, 
as I know it was to thousands of others. 

Marion. J. H. OATEY. 



We have all suffered the saddest bereavement in the de- 
parture of our beloved and faithful friend, Shurtleff. It is diffi- 
cult for one away from Cleveland to realize that he is gone and 
to think of that city and our Association in it as no longer 
possessed of a citizen and a secretary who was so valued and 
seemingly indispensable a part of the best life and character of 
both the city and the Association. It is a privilege and a joy 
to think of our brotherhood as an agency which brings to such 
a community such a leader and such a witness for the Savior 
and the Lord whom he loved so devotedly and served so 
faithfully. 

New York City. RICHARD C. MORSE. 



Few men have stood higher in my esteem than did Glen 
K. Shurtleff. He was a man with a large heart, a clear mind, 
and a rare fund of common sense. 

Cleveland. F. G. SMITH. 



Mr. Glen K. Shurtleff, to my mind, was one of the ablest 
general secretaries in our whole brotherhood — a man with a 
passionate love for men and never too busy to give advice or 
render any service he could to any one in need. 

To appreciate Mr. Shurtleff's worth, one had to be inti- 
mately acquainted with him. During my ten years as secretary 
under him, I learned to love the man dearly, and if I have 
had any success as a secretary, it is largely due to his counsel 
and advice. 

Cleveland. E. TOMLINSON. 

39 



Mr. Shurtleff was absolutely just in his relations with men, 
and especially with his subordinates. Always ready with en- 
couragement and counsel, yet he never urged men to follow his 
advice if it did not meet with their approval. 

He never was in any sense a boss, but always a leader who 
respected the opinions of the humblest of us. He was a man 
for whom his assistants had the profoundest regard. 

Cleveland. JOS. H. PECK. 



Glen K. Shurtleff more than any other Association leader 
believed strongly in the possibilities of the younger men in 
the employ of the Young Men's Christian Association. The 
best compliment that can be paid to him is simply to state that 
the general secretaries of Cincinnati, Columbus, Toledo and 
Cleveland Central are Shurtleff's men. 

Piqua. EDMUND McDONALD, Jr. 



The thing that I admired most in our late friend, Mr. Glen 
K. Shurtleff was that when he believed a thing to be right, and 
he was not easily determined in his beliefs, he cared nothing 
whatever for the opinion of others nor their adverse criticism. 

Middleport. R. H. KINNEY. 



Last Thanksgiving day marked the twenty-fifth year of Mr. 
Shurtleff's service in the Young Men's Christian Association. 
On that day I telegraphed him, "Thankful for your helpfulness 
during twenty-three of the twenty-five years." For one-third 
of this time I was one of his assistants. I would say that one 
of his chief characteristics was his faculty of being thoroughly 
helpful to men, measures, or movements that conformed to his 
common sense view of things. To be unbiased in his judgments 
was his constant practice; indeed, it almost amounted to a pas- 
sion with him. Herein, I believe, lay the important reason for 
his pre-eminent standing with men of all classes, types and 
spheres. He led and harmonized not by the artifices of dip- 
lomacy, but by his genuine sincerity, which was always apparent, 
and his absolute disinterestedness in any personal advantage to 
be gained. 

Columbus. H. E. OWEN. 



Glen K. Shurtleff did more to break up the idea of cant 
and professionalism in my life and to instill the idea of hard 
work than any other man in the brotherhood. 

Mt. Vernon. E. H. JESSON. 

40 



Force — force of personal presence, of character, of intellect, 
of will — was one of the most apparent things about Glen K. 
Shurtleff. The Association brotherhood at large saw more of 
this than of any other trait perhaps. 

He was apt to dominate a gathering by this natural quality 
which he could not help having and did not realize fully. A 
man's greatest power is often understood by others better than 
he himself understands it. To many of the men who saw him 
occasionally he was misunderstood because of the force he put 
into every utterance. He was a man whom others naturally 
try to imitate and fail when they try because — just because 
they are different. Shurtleff was "great." A great man has 
fallen. We common folks must go on working. 

Newark. W. J. FRASER. 



What impressed me most in him was a certain directness of 
approach to the matters under consideration, a keen insight into 
the questions involved, and a kindness and Christlikeness of 
spirit that radiated from his personality like a benediction. 

Newark. E. S. RANDOLPH. 



From the time I met Mr. Shurtleff at the conference which 
settled my decision for the secretaryship, he was to me a great 
inspiration for aggressive, constructive work. 

At times of difficulty a letter to him, and in several instances 
a trip to see him, resulted always in a reply or an interview 
which gave me a clearer view and a better grasp of the situa- 
tion. I shall greatly miss his friendly counsel. 

Delaware. O. M. MILLER. 



For more than twenty years I have reckoned Mr. Glen K. 
Shurtleff my brother, beloved in the service of Christ and our 
fellow-men, and his influence for good will abide with me during 
life. Mr. Shurtleff had made many noble qualities, but I will 
mention now, his loyalty to his convictions and his willingness 
to stand alone if need oe in support of them. 

Dayton. G. N. BIERCE. 



Mr. G. K. Shurtleff, in my opinion, had one distinguishing 
characteristic above that of every other Association man that 
I have ever met, and that is that while he was distinguished as 
an Association man, he did not forget his duties as a citizen. 
He constantly took an interest in all civic affairs in the city in 
which he lived and unquestionably helped to solve many prob- 
lems in the right way. In taking this interest he not only 
helped the city, but also the Association which he served. 

Bellevue. JESSE VICKERY. 



41 



The life and character of Mr. G. K. Shurtleff can be nothing 
but an inspiration to young business men and secretaries in 
particular. The knowledge of his successes and attainments has 
always been an inspiration to me personally and the memory 
of his ambition and persistence will stand before me through the 
rest of my life. 

Findlay. C. J. JOHNSON. 



He was a very great man and good. While he died twenty 
years too soon, nevertheless, "they live long who live well." All 
good work is like the climbing of hills with more hills looming 
up beyond — but the last is the summit of the Mountain beyond 
which is the city, not "made with hands." Into this, Friend 
Shurtleff has entered and his work will follow him. 

He was indeed a master workman. It was acknowledged on 
every side. He had brooded so long and so earnestly on the 
needs of his fellow-men in every walk of life because of his deep 
sense of brotherhood that he knew what to do and how to do it. 
Tender in heart, fertile in thought, courageous in choice, decisive 
in action and guided by Divine Wisdom, he became a shining 
example of what we all ought to be. 

State Normal College. PROF. F. TREUDLEY. 



I was always deeply impressed by his evident genuineness of 
character. There was simplicity of purpose, directness of method 
and great personal force. We shall sorely miss him in his work. 

Denison University. PRESIDENT EMORY W. HUNT. 



I shall ever cherish first in my memory of Mr. Shurtleff his 
magnificent attitude toward his men. It was that of the eagle 
that must sometimes stir the nest, to make the brood try the 
strength of their own wings, ready on the instant to swoop to 
their aid. 

He lived in high altitudes, fearless, calm of mind, clear of 
vision; and there are many of us who shall say some day, "He 
taught me how to live above the mists." 

Cleveland. WILL L. CHANDLER. 



From the first time I met Mr. Shurtleff he impressed me as 
having a remarkable personality, one who saw the needs of men 
and who had the faculty of devising means to meet them. 

Bowling Green. L. R. BURDGE. 



42 



It took some of us intense evangelicals years to appreciate 
the purposes and plans of Mr. Shurtleff. When we came to really 
know him we found that his plans included all we could desire 
and more than we could comprehend. He stood for an Asso- 
ciation of greatest usefulness to the whole man and the greatest 
number. Whether we understood him or not, he understood 
those who differed from him and to them he was always the 
considerate Christian gentleman, ready to render them a service 
or do them a kindness. 

I disagreed with him once over a certain policy, and I of- 
fered to resign from the Board. He smiled and said it wasn't 
necessary, that he appreciated the co-operation of men who dis- 
agreed with him as fully as that of those who agreed. 

Another time when I expected his opposition he gave his 
approval, saying that the man who did the work had the right 
to make the specifications. He took pains to give credit to others 
for efforts which he might have claimed for himself. When he 
could do a service for anyone, a friend or associate, he needed 
not to be asked. Helpfulness was spontaneous. 

Even after our long association I cannot write myself down 
as his friend, but I am his debtor for a broader view and a 
larger heart, and the knowledge that men can pull together, 
without thinking together, that we may speak different spiritual 
tongues and yet put in a full day's work side by side on the 
building of the Kingdom. 

Cleveland. F. M. BARTON. 



Mr. Shurtleff impressed me as having intuitively a most com- 
prehensive knowledge and understanding of men and of affairs. 
He was thus enabled to meet men and conditions in whatever 
came to him to do and with his enthusiasm, to enlist hearty 
support and co-operation and so accomplish great things. His 
loss will be almost irreparable. 

Youngstown. M. E. DENNISON. 



As I think of our late associate, Glen K. Shurtleff, it is with 
the feeling that not only has Ohio and the country at large lost 
a great leader in Association work; but one sentence expresses 
my own estimate of the man: I have lost a close friend and a 
safe adviser. I am sure I am not alone in this respect. 

During my fourteen years' acquaintance with Mr. Shurtleff 
I many times turned to him with my perplexing problems, ap- 
pealing to him for advice and I ever found him sympathetic 
and deeply interested in my little problems. 

Nelsonville. JOHN G. PERCY. 

43 



I feel greatly the loss of Mr. G. K. Shurtleff. Even though 
my contact with him was only occasional, his influence over my 
life for good, was marked. 

He impressed me as having the keenest, most far seeing mind 
of any man I have ever known. Every detail of the Young Men's 
Christian Association work was clearly thought out. The loss 
to the international and state work will be very great. His plans 
and policies will continue and be a living monument to him for 
years to come. 

Columbus. O. H. STARNER. 



Mr. Shurtleff possessed one of the best minds and hearts in 
our brotherhood. He was the Association surgeon and had he 
believed in bloodless surgery or in the use of antiseptics he 
would not have been so misunderstood by many. He was a friend 
who fearlessly, yet kindly, told you your faults face to face and 
spurred you on to your greatest effort. His place will remain 
vacant, for we have no more like him. 

Columbus. E. DOW BANCROFT. 



44 



Resolutions Adopted January 6, 1909, by the Secretaries 
of the Young Men's Christian Associa- 
tion of Cleveland. 

With hearts sore for the personal loss which every 
worker in the Cleveland Association feels in the passing 
of Mr. Shurtleff from life, we cannot fail to realize that 
the Association itself has suffered a loss from which it 
will be slow to recover. 

In behalf of the organization, we therefore record this 
memorial, as we who have aided in carrying out his plans 
have most intimate knowledge of his personality and 
character. 

For us he leaves a memory of devotion to this work 
which is an inspiration; 

of courage in difficulties and of modesty and self- 
effacement in success, so rare a type as to command our 
reverence ; 

of dignity of personality, yet so companionable as to 
win the deepest personal affection ; 

of such unswerving loyalty to duty that his personal 
reproof engendered only the cordial determination to win 
approval ; 

of simplicity of heart that constantly emphasized his 
greatness of mind ; 

of tolerance with others' convictions that always in- 
duced the greatest respect for his view and the desire to 
see from his large viewpoint; 

of intolerance with carelessness, yet kindest sym- 
pathy with well-intentioned mistakes; a sturdy judge, 
yet sweet-spirited friend ; 

of magnification of others' efforts and accomplish- 
ments and minimizing such part as his own personality 
had in them ; 

of his willingness to wound as a skillful surgeon, for 
the good of the individual ; 

of thoughtfulness for others' comfort, even to the 
abandonment of his own ; 

of willingness to co-operate with others' plans for 
the development and encouragement of their initiative ; 



45 



of readiness of sympathy to every call for counsel 
and advice ; 

of his talent for finding good in every one and de- 
veloping it to the control of faults. 

He leaves us with the most profound wish that we 
might have shared with him our health and even our 
number of days to prolong his life. 

His life and memory inspire us to the largest living 
for the good of others, and the deepest thanksgiving to 
God for having been given contact with his life. 



Resolutions Adopted January 25, 1909, by the Board of 

Trustees of the Young Men's Christian 

Association of Cleveland. 

Whereas, it has pleased our Heavenly Father in his 
wise, but mysterious providence, to remove from our 
midst to His eternal home our beloved friend and Gen- 
eral Secretary, Glen Kassimer Shurtleff, therefore, be it 
resolved : 

That while we bow with unquestioning submission 
to the Divine will, yet we desire hereby to record in a 
consciously inadequate and feeble way our estimate of 
the inexpressible loss we have sustained as individuals, 
as a Board of Trustees, and as members of the whole 
Association. . It is not in the power of words to express 
the feelings we cherish, or to measure the sorrow which 
is ours in the severing of the ties which have so closely 
bound us with ever increasing strength in all the fifteen 
years of his service among us. His was an embodiment 
of the strength and boldness of a giant, and the gentle- 
ness and modesty of a woman ; his was a religion of ex- 
ample, and not of precept only, of deeds and not of 
words, and his life is its own most fitting memorial ; his 
presence and counsel were a tower of strength in which 
it was ever safe to trust, and his wisdom an inexhaust- 
ible reservoir ever open to the demands of the needs of 
the individual, the community, the commonwealth and 
the wide world. In him was the embodiment of the 
highest principles of the Christian gentleman, and the 
most perfect ideals of the complete Young Men's Chris- 
tian Association man. It has been an unspeakable priv- 
ilege to have been so long in touch with such a character, 

46 



and to have been influenced by it, and we can never fail 
to cherish the fragrance of its memory, ever more sweet 
and enduring than that of the violets and roses beneath 
which the frail tenement of his spirit has been laid to 
rest: 

Sleep on, dear friend; 

Such lives as thine 
Have not been lived in vain, 

But shed an influence divine 
On those which still remain. 



47 
























• • • ' c 



Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
„ Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 

Treatment Date: Sept. 2005 

*o **o. 7** /\ <* **7j® PreservationTechnologies 

.^ c •» • ,, ^> A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION 

O <fO> *A£$$foi^0 \y 111 Thomson Park Drive 

<** t'v o'«^$sas!v% « *£ Cranberry Township, PA 16066 

O V , "Vky^TBfeg « «*• ( (724) 779-21 1 1 



7' J°* - 











?V V^*V %^>° v^V 






*_,&* 






•.* 



.0* ••^, * c 



* A 






♦^jgas-X /.;S&% /.iBS-.\ /.^ 



^ ° 

* O A* • 




LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




014 665 867 2 



